Idiot sci-fi question: Why did the starship Enterprise have such a stupid bridge?

[kiwi_2005]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

So, fearless readers and unapologetic Trekkies, let this here Trivia Geek in on the secret–or at least your crackpot theories–and explain why the starship(s) Enterprise had such a stupid bridge.

Yep and why on top where there's no protection from an attack. The Klingon are thick all they would need to do is autolock on all there missiles at that hub of a bridge and its bye bye Startrek. Thats once they take down the shields first which they never manage to get pass in there attacks.

[joea]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

Hey they had a Battle Bridge but it was used just once or twice. I remember the bit in ST:TNG movie where the saucer and body split Riker went to the Battle Bridge..

Agree SUBMAN they really should look at how a real warship works and then design something....

The best starship is USS Defiant.

The Battle Bridge was also exposed cause the Enterprise-D would spilt into two sections, saucer and the ship drive section.

Yea you're right though Subman.

[STEED]

Best end of year thread for 2007. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

[SUBMAN1]

Now that you guys have made your opinion. Here is what the rest of the world answered this question with:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/geekend/?p=593

It seems to have made a ton of replies to this blog! Hey! Is that guy saying the Final Countdown is lame???

-S

[mapuc]

Originally Posted by Iron Budokan

Um, you'd better sit down for this one. Take a deep breath. Get ready to have your entire worldview shattered. Okay, here we go, it's gonna be a big one:

Star Trek isn't real.

Oh, and Elvis is dead. (I threw that last in for extra credit.)

WHAT!! Is Star Trek not real?? And I how thought so...But Santa is real I know for sure.

Markus

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by mapuc

WHAT!! Is Star Trek not real?? And I how thought so...But Santa is real I know for sure.

Markus

He just doesn't know, so don't worry about it. He is not able to peer into the future like the rest of us can. He is stuck in like, 2007 or something.

-S

[AntEater]

Strangely enough, I was asking myself the same question one day or the other.
Actually the most realistic space opera CICs were those of the Earth Destroyers in Babylon 5, which were pretty much like a normal CIC on a warship.
Unfortunately they went back to the star treck kind of bridge for the white stars.
The Excalibur in Crusade had a mixture between the two, with a pretty circular bridge, but still with two dumb ahead looking pilots.
I suppose the Jeffries bridge design (a guy named Jeffries did the set for Star Trek, so they named the tubes after him) was more of a plot device.
It was build like a movie theater in order to have the whole command staff in one location and zoom in on everybody as needed. It saved set space and created a stage like athmosphere.
The whole "everybody staring ahead at the main screen" thing is idiotic as well, as there's mostly nothing to see except space.
I suppose the analogy Jeffries took was the quarterdeck of a sail warship "tack to starboard, Mr. Hornblower!" and so on.
Basically SciFi bridges oscillate between a plane cockpit and the Quarterdeck of HMS whatever.
Modern CICs are too unkown for the causal viewer.

Actually one of the most useful bridge designs was with the failed B5 pilot "Legends of the Rangers", where the ship had a circular CIC with a holographic display at the center and some kind of VR environment for the pilot and weapons officer.
The pilot sucked anyway....

[Steel_Tomb]

The best CiC I've seen is the CiC from the Pegasus in BSG...pretty cool if you ask me.

[Blacklight]

Hmmm... Well Star Trek ships have one thing that modern naval ships lack and that's SHIELDS. The Enterprise is surrounded by a large force field bubble (That can be weakened on various sides until it's broken through but let's not get into the logic of that). It's possible that placement of everything on the ship including the bridge could be simply due to the designers considering that the "Shields" would be enough proper armor for the ship. Considering the destructive force of the weapons we're dealing with in the Trek universe, once a ship's shields are gone, it's pretty much going to be blown to smitherines anyway so that may make physical placement of control centers and engines a moot point.
I DO know that the engines are designed to be ejectable in case of a "core breach".

As for fireing arcs, The Enterprise has several but is never really shown using them. It CAN fire at targets directly "Above" or "Below" it. You can actually see this happen in various episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine (Original Trek just recycled footage of phasers and photon torpedoes fireing and sometimes they would mess up and when Kirk would say "Fire phasers", they would show the photon torpedo footage or vise versa would happen ).

My sister is a Treker. I'll have to call her up and get more accurate info from her.

[Dowly]

Stupid show, stupid bridge. :rotfl:

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Torplexed

Frankly, I've never understood why the phaser banks and photon torpedoes were mounted in a position with such a limited field of fire. If an enemy vessel is 'above' the saucer section or directly below they're in a dead zone.

But given that the sixties were still a time when sci-fi spaceships were mostly conceived as being either flying saucers or needle-nosed rockets I have to give them credit for coming up with a rather unique design.

Well in space combat engagment ranges would be in excess of thousands of miles so what has a limited field of fire is less so a thousand miles away.

[Sailor Steve]

I'm with Neal and Torplexed: it was the sixties, and it looked cool!

No logic, no planning, just make it look neat.

[AntEater]

Dang, forgot BSG, of course.
Both Galactica's and Pegasus' CICs are of course quite ok, Pegasus' even more.
Galactica's bridge always reminds me of a WW2 fighter direction theatre.

Regarding the ranges, Star Trek ship combat usually takes place at about the same distances as the Battle of Trafalgar


Anyway, it seems Scifi ship designers are always torn between the "ship" and the "aircraft" analogy.
Star Trek normally prefers to think of its spacecraft as ships, with some exceptions like the Defiant that usually attacks like a fighter aircraft.
Generally, the TNG Enterprise was the least logical scifi ship ever, a flying luxury hotel!

[STEED]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

I'm with Neal and Torplexed: it was the sixties, and it looked cool!

No logic, no planning, just make it look neat.

Am I complaining no, I with you guys.

[Oberon]

Defiant bridge FTW